One MidSummer Night
by Tyranusfan
Summary: It only takes two. Humorfluff. Oneshot. Takes place sometime in season 2. Minor spoilers for In My Time of Dying. Rated T but completely safe.


_The idea for this one came from discussions with the writers over at SFTCOL(AR)S. Therefore, this story is faithfully dedicated to them._

_I think that when living out of cars and hotels, it would be very easy to loose track of the date. _

_There's no specific timeline in this one, just somewhere in season 2.Minor spoilers for "In My Time of Dying."_

_I own nothing Supernatural, though I like to think that our cat can ward off evil._

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**One Mid-Summer Night**

"Are you kidding me?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Dean retorted in exasperation. He started the car and drove out of the parking lot.

Sam shook his head and waved in the direction of the buildings in front of the car, "Unbelievable! How can every hotel in town be sold out? We're in the middle of nowhere!"

Dean sighed, "I don't know…the guy in the lobby said there was some kind of convention in town…all the hotels are booked for the rest of the week."

Sam groaned. They'd been tipped off to a rash of disappearances in Santa Barbara by one of Dad's old contacts, and were on the way to check it out. It was their second straight day of constant driving, and Sam's back and nerves were fried from being cooped up in the Impala for days on end. Dean would never admit to it, but Sam's finely tuned little brother's ear could hear the weariness in Dean's voice too. They needed to crash somewhere…badly.

"Well? You wanna keep going? Or head back to Flagstaff and get a room there?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, "Flagstaff's 60 miles from here…in the wrong direction…and you're on the verge of passing out behind the wheel already."

"Better than you, Francis…you actually _fell asleep_ behind the wheel last night! Or have you _forgotten_ why I've revoked your driving privileges for the rest of the week?"

Sam frowned and grumbled back, "Not like we **hit** anything…."

They drove in silence for another mile or so…long enough for the town to begin receding behind and empty desert to begin showing ahead. Dean sighed again and rubbed his eyes. He really was tired. He glanced at their surroundings, and then back at Sam.

"You know what this means, right?"

Sam rolled his eyes and groaned again, "Yeah…."

Dean smirked at his brother's discomfort. Sleeping in the car was the last thing Sam ever wanted to do. His freakishly long limbs made in next to impossible to get comfortable for more than a few minutes. _Well, any port in a storm_….

Dean found an old, out of service rest stop along the road side and stopped near the edge of the sand and dirt encrusted parking lot, far enough away from the few remaining street lights so that the black muscle car wouldn't be immediately visible from the road. Setting the brake, he yawned and settled back against the seat. A quick glance around verified that they were alone.

Sam shifted in his seat dejectedly. He wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight…that was for sure. Frowning, he undid his seat belt and tried to turn sideways, taking the weight off his legs and back. He was startled when Dean abruptly opened the door and exited the car.

"Hey, where're you going?" Sam called.

Dean dropped back into view and showed off the EMF detector in his hand, "I'm gonna check that building out before we turn in so nothing _eats_ or _possesses_ us…or have you forgotten everything I've taught you?"

Mildly embarrassed by his lapse, but more annoyed at being reminded of one of their father's oldest traveling lessons, Sam self-consciously busied himself with retrieving the tattered camping blanket from the backseat. They probably wouldn't need it, since it was still close to 80 degrees outside the car, but desert temperatures could plummet during the night, and he'd rather have the blanket close by just in case. Dean was back just a minute or so later.

"All clear…hey, good job, Sammy! You've been in the car alone for two whole minutes and haven't driven it off the road yet! You're improving."

"I told you I was sorry!" Sam replied indignantly, "I didn't _mean_ to fall asleep at the wheel---" he was cut off by Dean's sudden burst of laughter, "What?"

"You are _sooo_ easy, little brother, don't ever change…." Dean wheezed out through the giggles.

Sam scowled and returned to his attempt to settle into the seat, "Jerk."

He watched as Dean climbed back in, tossed the EMF into the back, shot him a big grin, and reclined against the seat with a dramatic sigh. Sam let his eyes drift shut, blindly pushing away the seatbelt buckle that was digging into his hip. It was going to be a long night. He was beginning to doze off fitfully when he heard it.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Mmm?"

"Remember that time Dad took us along on that hunt in West Virginia? We had to sleep in the car then too…."

Sam smiled, but didn't open his eyes, "In the **back**seat."

"We pretended we were on a stakeout…what show had we been watching?"

"Wasn't a show, it was a movie…Lethal Weapon I think…."

Dean grinned, "Oh, yeah, that's right. I was Riggs and you were boring old Murtaugh."

"Yeah, that was nice. Even when we were kids you thought I was dull. Now, shut the hell up, Dean. I'm tired."

Dean glanced over at his fetal-positioned brother and grimaced, "Grouch."

Sam didn't reply, just moved his legs again in the increasingly futile hope of finding a comfortable position. After a few minutes of pretending to sleep, his eyes drifted back open. _This isn't working_. He just blinked a few times, gazing out the driver's side window past Dean's annoyingly relaxed-looking form.

Sleep refused to come, so instead he mentally listed all the things they needed to get done in the next few days. Besides the hunt they were about to go on, they had to stop at some point and do laundry. They needed to get their suit jackets dry-cleaned. Dean wanted to get the Impala's engine tuned. Sam needed a new pair of shoes---

"Stop staring at me."

"What? I'm not staring at you…I was just thinking." Sam muttered, startled out of his thoughts by Dean's voice.

"Were you looking at me while you were thinking?" Dean asked casually.

"I guess…yeah…."

"Then stop staring at me!"

Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. Giving up on trying to rest in the car, or deal with his sleep-deprived sibling, he shifted onto his back and stared out over the front of the car.

They sat that way for several minutes, listening to the loud hum of the overage streetlight on the far side of the lot. They were still close enough to the town to hear a few scattered car horns and the rumble of engines in the distance. The area around them was still. A few dozen yards in front of them, the light from the town and the rest stop faded out, and nothing but darkness could be seen beyond.

To Sam it was almost like their world was a rather small bubble, beyond which lay empty space. Thinking back, he supposed that description fit their lives as well as any. Shaking off his random, not to mention bizarre, musings, he went back to his mental to-do list. His plans didn't get very far when he heard Dean shift suddenly in the driver's seat.

"Dammit…."

Sam looked over, "What's wrong?"

Dean huffed in aggravation, "Ah, we should have stopped for the night in Flagstaff…then we wouldn't be stuck here in Ass Fork sleeping the freakin' car."

Sam couldn't fight the grin that crept onto his face, "_Ash_, Dean. _Ash_ Fork."

"**No**. You've seen this craphole…trust me, it's Ass Fork."

Sam felt the grin getting stronger, and he fished his flashlight out of his pants' pocket. He picked up the discarded roadmap from the floorboard and clicked on the light.

Dean growled and covered his eyes against the offensive glare, "Argh, what are you doing?"

Sam started writing something on the map, and didn't look up, "Fixing it."

Dean cocked his head, "Fixing what?"

Sam placed the map on the seat between them and handed Dean the flashlight. Dean snickered; Sam had crossed out the tiny dot of "Ash Fork" on the map, and wrote in "Ass Fork" in block letters above it.

"Heh. Maybe we should call 'em," Dean deadpanned, pointing to the publisher's label on the bottom, "and say that we've updated their map for them."

Sam opened his mouth, but whatever he had planned to say in reply was cut off by what sounded like distant gunshots. Both boys jumped and craned their necks to look in the direction of the sound, off to the right back towards the town. Dean was about to speak when two huge red, white and blue explosions lit up the sky on the north side of 'Ass' Fork.

Dean looked at Sam, perplexed, "What the hell?"

Sam glanced back at the brilliant sparkling explosions, which were now being joined by new ones nearby, and the faint sound of cheering, "Wait…what day is this?"

Dean picked up Sam's flashlight, shining it on his wristwatch, "Well, that explains all those flags we've been seeing everywhere…" he looked at his brother with a wry grin, "Happy Fourth of July, Sammy."

Sam almost smiled, but another thought crossed his mind as he cast a baleful look at the brightly illuminated sky in the distance, "Well…I guess we aren't gonna get any sleep after all…not with the lightshow." Not to mention the thunderous noise of the manmade explosions. Some of the fireworks were straying to the West with the breeze, causing some of the giant airbursts to drift in their general direction. It was an impressive sight to say the least.

Dean bent over to watch the display through the windshield. _Not a bad show_…. He was stuck with an idea. He reached into the back seat and grabbed the second camping blanket out from under his duffle bag. Tapping Sam on the shoulder, he motioned outside, "Come with me. Bring the other blanket."

Sam frowned, but obeyed and followed Dean out of the car, towing the blanket he had placed in the front seat. He was about to ask his brother what he was doing, when he noticed that Dean was draping the large blanket over the hood of the Impala. Suddenly getting it, he smiled and helped smooth out the fabric, and then joined Dean in climbing carefully up onto the hood and lying down with his back against the curved glass of the windshield.

They watched the festivities for several minutes in silence. Sam was impressed. Ash Fork might be small, but they put on a great show. Before long, both he and Dean were clapping along with the invisible town spectators, their nagging exhaustion forgotten. During a lull in the action, Sam saw Dean prop his head up on his arms.

"Hey, Sammy…you remember that month we spent hiding out with Pastor Jim? When Dad was laying low after that gig in Minneapolis? What were you…eleven?"

Sam thought for a moment before finding the memory, "Heh. Thirteen. Yeah. Jim threw that big July Fourth cookout…"

Dean picked it up, "Caleb, Joshua, Bobby, and Jefferson all came…"

Sam's smile grew, "Jim said it was the first time that the 'family' had gotten together all at once since we were little kids…"

"Bobby brought his dog…"

"Yeah, and that mangy mutt _ate my book_…"

"Well, you were the one who brought a _book_ to a cookout…heh, you used to carry it around everywhere…you must have read it fifty times."

"At least…hey, it was a birthday present…I really liked that book."

Another round of fireworks lit up the sky, the noise of the explosions reverberating loudly over the landscape. This act lasted a little over seven minutes, according to Sam's estimate. Another round of distant cheering followed. A shiver went down Sam's spine…the temperature of the dry air was already beginning to drop. _Good thing we brought out the blankets._

"Who gave it to you?" Dean asked.

Sam looked at him, "Hmm?"

"The book. Who gave it to you, Dad or Jim?"

Sam snorted softly in amusement, and then looked back at the black sky, "No. You did. You bought it for my birthday out of your first paycheck."

Without looking, he could feel Dean glance at him, "Oh," he said softly, "that's right…I forgot about that…_mangy mutt_."

Sam smiled at the notion that they both could still be annoyed by the actions of a long dead canine. A wave of melancholy washed over him suddenly…that dog wasn't the only member of 'the family' that was no longer among the living.

"I guess we won't be able to have those cookouts anymore, huh?" he asked quietly. _Not with three of the VIP guests gone_.

"No, I guess not…." Dean replied softly. He really hadn't intended to bring up Dad when he thought about the cookout.

Silence descended over them and the area, and Sam silently regretted the fact that the fireworks show seemed to be over for the evening. He sighed.

"I guess it's over," he observed.

"Just about everyone has left."

Sam paused at the saddened note in Dean's tone…suddenly he wasn't sure if they were still talking about the fireworks show. He didn't have a chance to ask, though, because Dean abruptly spread the second blanket over them.

"Don't hog the covers, Sammy."

Sam felt a strange sense of relief when his brother's voice returned to normal, "I don't hog covers…."

"Yeah, yeah…you say that now, but I'll wake up freezing in a few hours because you'll be in a _cocoon_."

Sam laughed, unable to argue. _That **has** happened before_…. He stretched his arms lazily before pushing them completely under the blanket. The air was getting a bit nippy now for his taste.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Mmm?"

"We should do it next year."

Dean turned to him, "What?"

"Have a cookout on the Fourth."

Dean scoffed softly, "Hard to have a 'family cookout' with only two people…."

Sam considered that for a moment, but then just shrugged, "Sometimes two's all it takes to make a family."

Dean stared at him for a moment, at a loss for words. Finally deciding that it didn't need any, he smiled and let his eyes drift shut, "'Night Sammy."

"'Night Dean."

Sam lay still, staring out onto the arid landscape. He was oddly fascinated by the notion that they were a mere two miles past the city limits, and the area around them still appeared barren and uninhabited. He was equally aware of the fact that he was only two miles from civilized, "normal" life…and simultaneously _millions_ of miles away from ever really experiencing it.

Lying silently on the hood of the Impala, totally alone in the middle of nowhere, he wondered how he had ever let himself be drug back into this life.

Lying silently on the hood of the Impala, listening to the soft, relaxed breathing of his older brother next to him, he wondered how he had ever thought that he wanted to give it up.

End

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_A/N: Any disrespect of the town of Ash Fork or its citizens is totally the opinion of the Winchesters, and is not shared by the author in any way. _


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